Issue date: 4/23/09 Section: Entertainment

The adaptation is the film equivalent of your favorite sports team signing a big name free agent. All attention is firmly focused on what you do next. Expectations are raised to an astronomical level. In a culture so centered on image, when you bind a name with a contract, it becomes household, no matter its previous size. Be the source material book or graphic novel, all fans expect you to make the next Dark Knight: a blockbuster so powerful that no one disagrees that it deserved to dismantle box office records.

Zach Synder achieved exactly that result with his surprise 2007 adaptation of Frank Miller's 300. With a budget of $65 million, the epic earned over $456 million worldwide and resonated with audiences philosophically with its conservative story. Two years later, after months upon months of hype, Synder's adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's "most celebrated graphic novel of all time" Watchmen failed to make a similar splash earning only about $179 million worldwide on a budget of $150 million even though it was a far superior film and perhaps the best film to be released in theaters in years. Yes, it is arguably better than The Dark Knight.

At its core, the movie Watchmen is a tale of the indomitable human spirit. Though the story focuses on "super heroes," only one has super powers gained through a freak accident as is so often the case. Instead, in an alternative histories, men and women found themselves so inspired to fight crime outside of any officially sanctioned government organization that they began to dress up in costumes and go renegade like Lorenzo Lamas in the 90s. This trend lasted for decades until the government intervened and passed a law to limit human behavior as it always does. In 1977, Congress passed the Keene Act, outlawing all "masked vigilantes"…except official government operatives Dr. Manhattan and The Comedian, of course.

Here, Synder's adaptation departs from the novel philosophically and veers towards his humanistic conservative perspective. While the book seems to look down upon the outlawed heroes and their attempts to find themselves and good in the world, the film celebrates them at almost every turn. The most notable example is the most iconic character in both versions of the tale.

Rorschach both takes his name from and literally is an example of the psychological ink blot test. He is known for his ever shifting black and white mask, his inflexible black and white view of the world and morality, operating outside of the rule of law, and his violent attitude towards and treatment of criminals. He is arrested in both stories, but in the book he is treated much more like a criminal and in the movie he is treated much more a victim.

The intricacies of the characters and plot are much too in depth to be given a fair treatment in a mere newspaper column, so I will say the following: by departing the point of the Watchmen film from the Watchmen movie, Synder planted the mythos of the franchise firmly in the middle of the most important contemporary debates: collectivism vs. individualism and relativism vs. objectivism.

To break both tales down to one core question, they both ask one common questions: Who watches the Watchmen? Moore and Gibbon's book never seems to answer the question, reveling in post modernity with the sole intent of tearing down the hero. Synder's film answers the question from the exact opposite perspective. The final shot reminds us that the truth can't be concealed, and after 2 hours and 42 minutes you realize that you are the one who watches the Watchmen.

It is a stirring message at a time when government is growing at a historical rate.

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